"Thorn" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... on a species of thorn known in Cape Colony as wait-a-bit, which gives it a somewhat acrid and bitter flavour. The white species, however, feeds chiefly on grass. The flesh has in consequence a pleasant taste, and is usually very fat. A high polish can be given to the horns of the ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... figure stood not unlike some gnarled thorn that might have appeared to take human shape in ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... confidently claimed by a high authority that this is an original Greek bronze. There exist also fragmentary copies of the same in marble and free imitations in marble and in bronze. The statue represents a boy of perhaps twelve, absorbed in pulling a thorn from his foot. We do not know the original purpose of the work; perhaps it commemorated a victory won in a foot-race of boys The left leg of the figure is held in a position which gives a somewhat ungraceful outline; Praxiteles would not have placed it so. But how delightful is the ...
— A History Of Greek Art • F. B. Tarbell
... rooted in the consciousness of the Old World, and corresponded to a true conception of the needs of humanity. The dark sense of sin, the conviction that it required expiation, and that procurable only by death, drove men to these horrid rites. And that ram, caught in the thicket, thorn-crowned and substituted for the human victim, taught Abraham and his sons that God appointed and provided a lamb for an offering. It was a lesson won by faith. Nor need we hesitate to see some dim forecast of ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... about the heart. By spiritual contact with her, other persons become angelic also. She teaches, by example, what a divine exaltation is sometimes reached through adversity and pain. The head, discrowned of earthly glory, is crowned with celestial beauty. When sufferings stimulate virtues, the thorn-wreath blossoms on our brow: when sacrifices feed faith, the cross which we clasp puts on wings and ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... are exhorted to "wait on the Lord, and keep his way" (Psa. 37: 34). If wrongs are not righted, if persecutions continue, if, like Paul, we have a "thorn in the flesh" and our desires are not granted, let us do what this text tells us—let us "keep His way." Let us serve the Lord just as truly as though conditions were ideal and all our desires satisfied. Let us show our fidelity to God, by being true whether circumstances are favorable ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor
... scalpings, captivities, and murders of the Indians, magnified in a tenfold proportion. With them, the savages were like the ogres and bloody giants of nursery stories. They had pleasant tales of horn-snakes, of such deadly malignity, that the thorn in their tails, struck into the largest tree in full verdure, instantly blasted it. They scented in the air of the country, deadly diseases, and to them, Boone's paradise was a Hinnom, the valley of the ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint
... for breaking up quarters at St. Louis, and the young fortune-hunters started up the river in good spirits. It was only the second time either of them had been upon a Mississippi steamboat, and nearly everything they saw had the charm of novelty. Col. Sellers was at the landing to bid thorn good-bye. ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 2. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... stubble through which I walk in the September fields—the rotting wastage of harvests long since gathered in. At other times I drive myself upon their sharp and piercing conflicts as a bird is blown uselessly again and again by some too strong a wind upon the spikes of the thorn. I hear the angry talk of our farmers and merchants, I listen to the fiery orations of our statesmen and the warning sermons of our divines. (Think of a human creature calling himself a divine.) The troubled ebb and flow of events in Kentucky, the larger movements ...
— Aftermath • James Lane Allen
... bitter thou wast from thy birth, Aphrodite, a mother of strife; For before thee some rest was on earth A little respite from tears A little pleasure of life; For life was not then as thou art, But as one that waxeth in years Sweet-spoken, a fruitful wife; Earth had no thorn, and desire No sting, neither death any dart; What hadst thou to do amongst these, Thou, clothed with a burning fire, Thou, girt with sorrow of heart, Thou sprung of the seed of the seas As an ear from a seed of ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... penetrate at all times towards the heart of our country; but I fear that it is altogether beyond our means. It is one of the strongest cities in the Netherlands, and my ancestors, who were its lords, little thought that they were fortifying and strengthening it in order that it might be a thorn in the side of their country. I would give much, indeed, to be able to wrest it from the enemy; but I fear it will be long before we can even hope for that. It could withstand a regular siege by a well provided army for months; and as to surprise, ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... life is so beautiful and pure; no other life is so tranquilly peaceful; no other is so full of rest, happiness, and satisfaction. The Christian, however, does not go to heaven on flowery beds of ease. His pathway is not strewn with roses all the way; there is now and then a thorn. It is not sunshine all the time; now and then a shadow falls. To win heaven he must fight. There are some things to oppose a Christian on his pilgrimage to the skies; these he must contend against. The contending against those things prepares him ...
— How to Live a Holy Life • C. E. Orr
... the misty morn Stand shadowless like Silence, listening To silence, for no lonely bird would sing Into his hollow ear from woods forlorn, Nor lowly hedge nor solitary thorn; Shaking his languid locks all dewy bright With tangled gossamer that fell by night, Pearling his coronet ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... brier and thorn, The barley and the wheat shall spring, And valleys standing thick with corn (Praise God, my ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... Silk, nodding down admiration. "What a group to startle!—Cupid extracting a thorn from the hand of Venus—or (shall we say?) the Love god, having wounded his mother in sport, kisses the scratch to make ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... embroidered ball-gowns which cost twenty thousand francs to the mauve and silver in which she went a-hunting in the forest of Fontainebleau. At Petit Trianon and in the Faubourg St Honore, she had palaces that were dreams of beauty and luxury. The only thorn in her bed of roses was, in fact, her husband, the Prince, the very sight of whom was sufficient to spoil ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... in earnest now, Mr. Fletcher resolved to ask the momentous question again without delay. David was not there, and had not been for several weeks, another thorn in Christie's heart, though she showed no sign of regret, and said to herself, "It is better so." His absence left Fletcher master of the field, and ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... revealed, the Lady of the Lake, weary of her aged lover, and wishing to rid herself of him forever now that she had learned all he could teach her, lured him into the depths of the forest. There, by aid of the spell, she imprisoned him in a thorn bush, whence, if the tales of the Breton peasants can be believed, his voice can be heard to issue from ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... story, and it's nicer than dying, but they can have lots of nice adventures first. But here are the 'Feats on the Fiords' and the 'Crofton Boys' and 'Water Babies,' and all the volumes of 'Aunt Judy,' if you like the younger sort. Or the dear, dear 'Thorn Fortress;' that's good for ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... thorn, Fine flowers in the valley, And there has she her sweet babe born, And the green leaves they ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... The real thorn in the flesh of the annexed Alsatians is, however, as I have before pointed out, military service, and the enforced German education. All who have read Alphonse Daudet's charming little story, La derniere ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... or rather grey of morn, Gulbeyaz rose from restlessness; and pale As passion rises, with its bosom worn, Array'd herself with mantle, gem, and veil. The nightingale that sings with the deep thorn, Which fable places in her breast of wail, Is lighter far of heart and voice than those Whose headlong ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... me and I'll tell you. Look, there is a quiet place in yon corner under the thorn-trees by that piece of water. See, they are leaving off work: I will go for a can of beer, and then, pray, let me ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... with lime and roughcast, doth present Wall, that vile Wall, which did these lovers sunder; And through Wall's chink, poor souls, they are content To whisper. At the which let no man wonder. This man, with lanthorn, dog and bush of thorn, Presenteth Moonshine; for, if you will know, By Moonshine did these lovers think no scorn To meet at Ninus' tomb, there, there to woo. This grisly beast, which by name Lion hight. The trusty Thisby, coming first by night, ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... spiritual signs, rather than as diversions from the laws of nature. His allegory of the burning bush, which Moses saw at Horeb is typical, and presents a truth to which the whole history of Israel bears witness. The weak thorn-bush, which was not consumed by the fire, is the image of the idea of Israel, which almost cries to the people in their misfortune: "Do not despair! Your weakness is your strength, and by it you shall wound race after race. You will ...
— Philo-Judaeus of Alexandria • Norman Bentwich
... Bluebeard among its kind. Its only characteristic feature is its beak, the upper mandible having two sharp processes and a sharp hooked point. It cannot fly away to any distance with the bird it kills, nor hold it in its claws to feed upon it. It usually impales its victim upon a thorn, or thrusts it in the fork of a limb. For the most part, however, its food seems to consist of insects,—spiders, grasshoppers, beetles, etc. It is the assassin of the small birds, whom it often destroys in pure wantonness, or merely ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... avoided her: but she called me to her, and then I approached her with an air, 'What brings you, Madam, into the garden at so early an hour?' turning my face from her; for I had a few scratches on my forehead—with a thorn, or so—which I feared she would be more inquisitive about than I ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... sanctifying the heart of man. "As far as possible;" that is, as far as is consistent with the fulfilment of the sentence of condemnation on the whole earth. Death must be upon the hills; and the cruelty of the tempests smite them, and the briar and thorn spring up upon them: but they so smite, as to bring their rocks into the fairest forms; and so spring, as to make the very desert blossom as the rose. Even among our own hills of Scotland and Cumberland, though often too barren ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... Decius paced together a garden alley, between a row of quince-trees and a hedge of Christ's-thorn; at one end was a fountain in a great basin of porphyry, at the other a little temple, very old and built for the worship of Isis, now an oratory under the invocation of the Blessed Mary. The two young men made a singular contrast, for Basil, who was in his ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... not pushing him beyond this position; and that, in fact, our judgment is rather against his going beyond it. If he can only maintain this position, without more, this rebellion can only eke out a short and feeble existence, as an animal sometimes may with a thorn in ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... life is a garden where all choose their posies: In the spring of our youth let us gather the roses; For brief is their bloom like the dews of the morn, If you seek them too late you will find but a thorn. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 275, September 29, 1827 • Various
... to Mrs. Gaskell formed a cheering break in the journey. Haworth Parsonage is rather a contrast, yet even Haworth Parsonage does not look gloomy in this bright summer weather; it is somewhat still, but with the windows open I can hear a bird or two singing on certain thorn-trees in the garden. My father and the servants think me looking better than when I felt home, and I certainly feel better myself for the change. You are too much like your son to render it advisable I should say much about your kindness during my visit. However, one cannot help (like Captain ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... ceased." And practically orders Czernichef, who is wintering with his 20,000 in Glatz, to quit Glatz and these Austrian Combinations, and march homeward with his 20,000. Which Czernichef, so soon as arrangements of proviant and the like are made, hastens to do;—and does, as far as Thorn; but no farther, for a reason that will be seen. On the last day of March, Czernichef—off about a week ago from Glatz, and now got into the Breslau latitude—came across, with a select Suite of Four, to pay his court there; and had the honor to dine with ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... wolverine or raccoon comes to life when thrown into scalding water, and that in another narrative Lox dies for want of fire; in another he is pricked by thorns and stung by ants. "We must," says C. F. Keary, in his Mythology of the Eddas, "admit that the constant appearance of thorn-hedges, pricking with a sleep-thorn (Lox's thorns are his bed), in German and Norse legends, is a mythical way of expressing the idea of ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... is said to have suffered from an appetite for alcoholic drink until his death; yet he saved many a drunkard from this fatal appetite. Paul [5] had a thorn in the flesh: one writer thinks that he was troubled with rheumatism, and another that he had sore eyes; but this is certain, that he healed others who were sick. It is unquestionably right to do right; and heal- ing the sick is a very right ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... man should account of me above that which he seeth me to be, or heareth from me. And by reason of the exceeding greatness of the revelations—wherefore that I should not be exalted overmuch, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of ...
— Cosmic Consciousness • Ali Nomad
... it led him southward all the day, Through the shinin' country of the thorn and snake, Where the heat had drove the lizards from their play To the shade of rock and bush and yucca stake. And the mountains heaved and rippled far away And the desert broiled as on the devil's prong, But he didn't mind the devil if his head ...
— Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp • Various
... the enemy were said to be intrenched, and to have eighteen guns. Such was the case. A wall, with tower bastions, enclosed the whole, and detached square towers within overlooked all; while a ditch, fifteen feet deep, ran outside, and beyond it were gardens, with high thorn and cactus fences: altogether it was a very formidable position. Shortly before one o'clock on the 5th, the Persian videttes and reconnoitring parties were made out; but they very rapidly retreated. A smart brush, ...
— Our Soldiers - Gallant Deeds of the British Army during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... when, all of a sudden, she stumbled on an acorn, and fell down, basket and all, and she hurt her paw on a thorn, so she couldn't carry ...
— Bully and Bawly No-Tail • Howard R. Garis
... simple funeral was over, he took Tom by the hand, and set off on the six-mile walk to his home. Tom had cried till he could cry no more, but sobs came quivering up from his heart every now and then, as he passed some well-remembered cottage, or thorn-bush, or tree on the road. His uncle was very sorry for him, but did not know what to say, or how to ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... eastern counties of England. Thus in Suffolk if a man cuts himself with a bill-hook or a scythe he always takes care to keep the weapon bright, and oils it to prevent the wound from festering. If he runs a thorn or, as he calls it, a bush into his hand, he oils or greases the extracted thorn. A man came to a doctor with an inflamed hand, having run a thorn into it while he was hedging. On being told that the hand was festering, he remarked, "That didn't ought ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... river. It grew dark, and I fell asleep. It was towards the end of October, and it proved a stormy night. I felt the cold in my sleep, and dreamed that I was pulling the blanket over me, and actually pulled over me a dry thorn-bush which lay on the ground near me. In my sleep I had rolled from the top of the hill till within three yards of the river, which flowed by the unfenced edge of the bottom. I awoke several times, and, finding myself wet and cold and stiff, closed ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... astonishment, the Lion, instead of springing upon him and devouring him, came and fawned upon him, at the same time whining and lifting up his paw. Observing it to be much swollen and inflamed, he examined it and found a large thorn embedded in the ball of the foot. He accordingly removed it and dressed the wound as well as he could: and in course of time it healed up completely. The Lion's gratitude was unbounded; he looked upon the man as his friend, ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... low, overhanging branches, and a second later warning her of some sudden irregularity in the ground. The narrow forest footpath was anything but a pleasant road for a ramble, and was an especially trying passage for the woman. Her dress caught frequently on thorn and branch, and her long gauze veil had to be loosened from more than one bramble, while her feet sank, time and again, in the soft, moist, moss-covered earth. It could not be helped, and yet Hartmut felt in his self assumed ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... of wandering merchants; and one had been in Rome and seen Peter disputing with Simon Magus; another in India, where he had heard St. Thomas preaching to the Brahmins; a third brought with him from the wilds of Britain, a staff which he had cut, as he said, from a thorn tree, the seed of which St. Joseph had sown there, and which had grown to its full size in a single night, making merchandize of the precious relic out of the credulity of the believers. So the legends grew, and were treasured up, and loved, ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... felt, with an instinct that was not to be combated by reason, that Leslie harbored a queer, indefinable resentment towards her. At times, this secret consciousness marred the delight of their comradeship; at others it was almost forgotten; but Anne always felt the hidden thorn was there, and might prick her at any moment. She felt a cruel sting from it on the day when she told Leslie of what she hoped the spring would bring to the little house of dreams. Leslie looked at her with ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... offensive about it, now, at this distance from them. Upon the whole, not caring very actively for us, one way or the other, they take it amiably; they try to get our point of view, and, as if it were a thorn, self-sacrificially press their bosoms against it, in the present or recent entente cordiale. None of their idiosyncrasies is more notable than their patience, their kindness with our divergence from them; ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... her bicycle, and, examining it with the air of a man who had won silver cups in his day, I speedily discovered what had been the mischief. The tire of the front wheel had been pierced, and a great thorn was protruding from the place. Evidently this had been too much for poor Rosalind, and it was not unlikely that she had cried ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... Purandara embraced Mahasena and said to him, "This Mahisha, who was made invincible by the favour of Brahma hath been killed by thee. O best of warriors, the gods were like grass to him. O strong-limbed hero, thou hast removed a thorn of the celestials. Thou hast killed in battle hundreds of Danavas equal in valour to Mahisha who were all hostile to us, and who used to harass us before. And thy followers too have devoured them by hundreds. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... slim Melmillo in To that wood all dusk and green, And with lean long palms outspread Softly a strange dance did tread; Not a note of music she Had for echoing company; All the birds were flown to rest In the hollow of her breast; In the wood—thorn, elder, willow— Danced alone—lone ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)
... the day when the Canon of Thorn expired while holding in his trembling hands the first copy of the work which was to glorify the name of Poland, when Wuertemberg witnessed the birth of a man who was destined to achieve a revolution in science not less fertile in consequences, and still more difficult to accomplish. ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... out, worship," said the other. "Belike you think me a sorry dog not to make fight of this. But the old knight, look you, is not come-at-able. I threw one of his varlets into a thorn hedge, and another into a water-butt, and a third landed head-first into a ditch. But I couldn't do any fighting ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... the old man kneeling beside her. He fancied that it broke from behind the dark bars of cloud in the West, thinking of the old appeal, "Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and the King of Glory shall come in." Was He going in, yonder? A weary man, pale, thorn-crowned, bearing the pain and hunger of men and women vile as Lot, to lay them at His Father's feet? Was he to go with loving heart, and do likewise? Was that the meaning of Christmas-day? The quiet glow grew deeper, more ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... are the blushes of morn, And sweet is the gay blossom'd grove; The linnet chants sweet from the thorn, But sweeter's the smile ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... helpless as a baby. See the care given by the mother and father to keep it warm till its down and feathers grow, to feed it till it is able to leave the nest. Watch the parents teaching it to fly by repeated short flights. Olive Thorn Miller in her Bird Ways gives a delightful sketch of the father robin teaching a young robin where to look for worms and how to dig them up. When that task was accomplished, his father began to give him "music lessons", that is, practice in imitating the Robin's song. ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Nature Study • Ontario Ministry of Education
... itself was all run to waste by this time, and had a miserable look about it—sometimes you might see a piece of a field that had been ploughed, all overgrown with grass, because it had never been sowed or set with anything. The slaps were all broken down, or had only a piece of an ould beam, a thorn bush, or crazy car lying acrass, to keep the cattle out of them. His bit of corn was all eat away and cropped here and there by the cows, and his potatoes rooted up by the pigs.—The garden, indeed, had a few cabbages, and a ridge ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... awakening of a new life within her; it marked her off from the criminals whose only regret is failure in securing their evil wish. Deronda could not utter one word to diminish that sacred aversion to her worst self—that thorn-pressure which must come with the crowning of the sorrowful better, suffering because of the worse. All this mingled thought and feeling kept him silent; speech was too momentous to be ventured on rashly. There were ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... caught a glimpse of a scarlet coat, long white hair and beard and flashing jewels. Hands of iron seized Giles Peram. He was lifted into the air as if he had been an infant, and flung head first into a cluster of white thorn, where he lay for a few moments, confused and bleeding. Then Sir Albert St. Croix raised the half-fainting Rebecca from ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... a perfect world here below, do you, Paul?" replied Shif'less Sol. "Thar ain't never nothin' without a thorn in it, but our thorn is about ez little a one ez you could think of. The Injuns give us a kind o' excitin' variety, an' don't we ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... sky, arms, legs, wheels, and bushes seemed all mixed together, and then Jack Vance found himself resting on his hands and knees in a puddle of dirty water. Diggory and Mugford had been driven with considerable violence into the thickest part of a thorn hedge, and proceeded to extricate themselves therefrom with ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery
... leaves of the vine. And high above our heads waved many a poplar, while close at hand the sacred water from the nymphs' own cave welled forth with murmurs musical. On shadowy boughs the brown cicalas kept their chattering toil. Far off the little owl cried; in the thick thorn-brake the lark and finches sang; the ringdove moaned; the yellow bees were flitting round the springs. All breathed the scent of opulent summer, of the season of fruits. The pears at our feet and apples by our side were rolling plentiful; ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker
... a piece of wood, carefully drawn, will be the best introduction to the drawing of the clouds of the sky, or the waves of the sea; and the dead leaf-patterns on a damask drapery, well rendered, will enable you to disentangle masterfully the living leaf-patterns of a thorn ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... mornin' the white pony is limpin' an' draggin' his off hind hoof, an' when he's standin' still he p'ints the toe down like something's fetched loose. Black Cloud is sore; but he can't find no cactus thorn nor nothin' to bring about the lameness an' he don't know what to make of the racket. Black Cloud's up ag'inst it, an' the audience begins to figger that the Lance's' medicine is too strong for ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... it's different." Elfreda paused to give full effect to her words. Then she ended slowly and impressively: "Don't think I'm trying to court calamity, but I am certain that perky little newspaper woman, as she styles herself, is going to prove a thorn in your side. You had better write to Mabel and explain matters, then leave Miss Kathleen West alone. She hasn't spoken to you since the day of the bazaar, so I can't see that your junior counsel is of any particular ...
— Grace Harlowe's Third Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... hand and looked kindly on him, and the Sea-eagle followed him, murmuring an old song of the harvest-field, and they went together by a path through a thicket of white-thorn till they came unto a grassy place. There then they sat them down, and ate and drank what they would, sitting by the lip of the pool till a waning moon was bright over their heads. And Hallblithe made no semblance ...
— The Story of the Glittering Plain - or the Land of Living Men • William Morris
... a thorn? Then count it not a whit! Man is well done with it; Soon as he's born He should all means essay To put the plague away; And I, war-worn, Poor captured fugitive, My life most gladly give - I might have ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... of those joyous spring-tide feelings which bubble up in himself; as when he remembers how, "Once did I wander on a May morning in a fair flower-adorned field on a hillside overlooking the sea, which was all tremulous with light; and there, among the roses of a green thorn-brake, a damsel was singing of love; singing so sweetly that the sweetness still touches my heart; touches my heart, and makes me think of the great delight it was to listen;" and how he would fain repeat that song, and indeed an echo of its sweetness ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. II • Vernon Lee
... bush with thorns, perhaps a hawthorn, and then when he catches any small creature he sticks it on the thorns and leaves it there spiked until it is wanted. Look at this one's larder. He has a wretched little dead sparrow hanging by its neck from a big thorn, and two or three bumble-bees spiked too. We can imagine the mamma saying to the little ones: 'No, dears, you mustn't have any sparrow to-night just before you go to bed; it would give you indigestion and make you dream. Papa will have some of that for his supper, ...
— The Children's Book of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... flaunting great crimson tufts; the yellow flowering mustard, taller than the tallest man; giant thistle, and wild pumpkin with spotted leaves; the huge hairy fox-gloves with yellow bells; feathery fennel, and the big grey-green thorn-apples, with prickly burs full of bright red seed, and long white wax-like flowers, that bloomed only in the evening. He could never get high enough on anything to see over the tops of these plants; but at last he found his way through them, and discovered ...
— A Little Boy Lost • Hudson, W. H.
... exploits in this direction was when he found himself at one time by the sea. It was a lonely coast, where great crimson cliffs rose sheer out of the sand, their ledges, here and there, covered with tamarisk, gorse, and shaven thorn—right to their very summit three hundred feet above, from whence the moors stretched far away inland. A heavy surf beat there at times, setting these cliffs echoing in such a way as to make speech difficult. On these wild days it was well that this dog had learnt to work so perfectly ...
— 'Murphy' - A Message to Dog Lovers • Major Gambier-Parry
... unutterable fear appeared rather to increase than diminish, and I again uttered wild cries, so loud that I was apprehensive they would be heard by some chance passenger on the neighbouring road; I therefore went deeper into the dingle. I sat down with my back against a thorn bush; the thorns entered my flesh, and when I felt them, I pressed harder against the bush; I thought the pain of the flesh might in some degree counteract the mental agony; presently I felt them no longer—the power of the mental horror was so great that it was impossible, ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... bent low with the sweets Of her bountiful white-thorn bloom? Of alabaster that repeats The ...
— Enamels and Cameos and other Poems • Theophile Gautier
... enjoyment of Sunday leisure, by taking a long, loitering walk in the woods, that hardly an hour remains before the closing of the mail. I found such pretty, solitary paths, quite narrow, between the greening hazel and thorn-bushes, where only the thrush and the glede-kite were heard, and quite far off the bell of the church to which I was playing truant, that I could not find my way home again. Johanna is somewhat exhausted, in connection with her ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... it the mystic candelabra of visions and legends, with a hundred thousand branches bristling and overflowing with sorrowing thorns and ecstatic roses, with angels, virgins, and martyrs upon every flower and on every thorn, with infinite myriads of the triumphant Church springing from the ground pyramidically even into the azure, with its millions of blended and vibrating voices mounting upward in ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Vol VIII - Italy and Greece, Part Two • Various
... Thorn-bushes were now cut, and a kraal built in the usual manner—that is with the tops of the bushes turned outwards. The size of the kraal was a matter of no consequence; and, of course, to save labour, a small ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... Spring, And day's at the morn; Morning's at seven; The hill-side's dew-pearled; The lark's on the wing; The snail's on the thorn; God's in his heaven— All's right ...
— The Posy Ring - A Book of Verse for Children • Various
... got up and moved away in shocked silence. Mrs. Hexter was a good deal of a thorn in her flesh, and she only tolerated her because of Mr. Hexter and his position. After the retreating and disaffected hostess came Mrs. Archbold's voice, with a thread ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... magic article. But the Prince of No. 21, when he seeks the Bel-Princess, becomes invisible to the "demons and fairies" who surround her, when he blows from the palm of his hand, "all along his fingers," the earth which a friendly fakir has given him for that purpose. A "sleep-thorn," or other somniferous piece of wood, is commonly employed in our fairy tales, in order to throw a hero or heroine into a magic slumber. In these Indian stories a state of catalepsy, or of death, ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Anonymous
... small thorn into it, by speaking of Captain Fenellan, and aside, as if sharing him with her. Nataly heard that Dartrey had been the guest of these Blathenoys. Even Dartrey was but ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... brought face to face with new problems; among the many is the problem of adjusting himself to the abundance of freedom into which he comes so suddenly. His new freedom brings him new changes, as well as new opportunities, for among the roses there lies the thorn.... While the inducements of the North are very alluring, in the end the negro problem must be ...
— Negro Migration during the War • Emmett J. Scott
... and to riches born, Yet in earth's fairest flower he saw the thorn. Beneath the finest linen sackcloth felt, And bound his purple with an iron belt; Lived Heaven's trustee, and lent, and gave away, To God's own heirs who never could repay; And died a rare example to the great, Of lowly virtue ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... he knew not how to act, since, if he treated her with kindness, she was in despair, calling herself a lost soul, applying to her own case the woe denounced on those with whom the world is at peace, and complaining that she had no longer "a thorn in the flesh to buffet her." A disconsolate mother implored Dr. Beaumont to interfere and support her authority with her daughter, who, misunderstanding their preacher's encomiums on the sufficiency of faith, abandoned herself to antinomian licentiousness, ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... undergrowth, a path probably made by a wild beast—unless it was a contrivance to escape from the back of the house in case of emergency— and along this they crawled painfully, with the bushes on either side and overhead. Now a thorn entered hand or knee, now some kind of vegetable hook caught in their clothes, and then they had to creep round some rugged stump of a tree ...
— The Rajah of Dah • George Manville Fenn
... gave fresh orders to accelerate the movement of his troops from west to east. He went in a traveling coach with six horses, surrounded by pages, aides-de-camp, and an escort, along the road to Posen, Thorn, Danzig, and Konigsberg. At each of these towns thousands of people met him with ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... and slippery as ghosts as we made our way through the timber on the slope. It was slow work, though; the woods were full of tangled vines and prickly bushes, and we got clawed up considerable and had all we could do to keep from cussing out loud when a thorn or something would rip a cheek open. It was blacker than any night I've ever seen before or since; we couldn't see a foot ahead, and the sounds we heard in the woods didn't make us feel any too comfortable, for all we'd got used to living in the open. We knew, of course, that the sounds came ...
— The Boss of the Lazy Y • Charles Alden Seltzer
... like.' Then the play commenced between Pushkara and Nala. And blessed be Nala who at a single throw won his wealth and treasures back along with the life of his brother that also had been staked. And the king, having won, smilingly said unto Pushkara, 'This whole kingdom without a thorn in its side is now undisturbedly mine. And, O worst of kings, thou canst not now even look at the princess of Vidarbha. With all thy family, thou art now, O fool, reduced to the position of her slave. But my former defeat at thy hands was not due to any act of thine. Thou knowest it not, O fool, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... from the point of view of her own death-bed. I mean to say, the child had to ask herself, 'How will this action look when I am on my death-bed?' Every cross word, every small disobedience, she was told, would be a 'thorn in her dying pillow.' I said, perhaps rather rudely, that Great-aunt Alison must have been a horrible old ghoul, but Jean defended her hotly. She seems to have had a great admiration for her aged relative, though she owned that her death was something of a relief. Unfortunately ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... nobleman played to perfection her new and exalted role of Princess. "No woman of her time," says Lord Hervey, "performed the honours of her drawing-room with such grace, affability, and dignity." And, in spite of George's frowns, the only real thorn in her bed of roses was the knowledge that the Duchess of Gloucester, who, as the daughter of a Piccadilly sempstress, was infinitely her inferior by birth, and not even her superior in beauty, was received with open arms at the Castle, and drew ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... glen reposed a small clear sheet of water, as calm and unruffled as the village itself. By this sweet lake was fed the pure stream which murmured down between the banks, here and there opened, and occasionally covered by hazel, black-thorn, or birches. As it approached the village the scenery about it became more soft and tranquil. The banks spread away into meadows flower-spangled and green; the fields became richer; the corn waved to the soft breezes of summer; the noon-day smoke of the dinner fires ...
— Lha Dhu; Or, The Dark Day - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... archway about four feet six inches high, constructed of large pieces of hard wood that it was impossible to destroy. The doorway was stopped by transverse bars of abdnoos, or Bari ebony, and protected by a mass of hooked thorn that had been dragged into the passage and ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... openly—her inexperience, or rather her awkwardness, enchanted me. I seemed for the first time to pluck the fruit of the tree of knowledge, and never had I tasted fruit so delicious. My little maid would have been ashamed to let me see how the first thorn hurt her, and to convince me that she only smelt the rose, she strove to make me think she experienced more pleasure than is possible in a first trial, always more or less painful. She was not yet a big girl, the roses on her swelling breasts were as ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... complete subjection. Every means was legitimate to Leonetta. If she could not pretend to read a man's hand, she would make a cat's cradle with him; if she could not take his arm, she would plead sudden fatigue in order that he might take her hand to pull her up hill; if she picked a wild rose, a thorn would be sure to remain buried in the skin of her finger, which at some propitious moment would require to be laboriously removed by one of the ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... his undoubted soundness in constitution, in wind, limb, and feet. It will be noticed that the Englishman must have soundness in wind, limb, and feet, showing that their thoroughbred is the thorn in that particular. The Arabian has also wonderful intelligence, great beauty, and good disposition, with an almost affectionate desire to adapt himself to ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 611, September 17, 1887 • Various
... courtesy, i.e. the manners taught in castle courts, was softening the demeanour of knights and nobles. Architecture was at its most beautiful period, as is seen, above all, in the Sainte Chapelle at Paris. This was built by Louis IX. to receive a gift of the Greek Emperor, namely, a thorn, which was believed to be from the crown of thorns. It is one of the most perfect buildings ...
— History of France • Charlotte M. Yonge
... straight against the sky, and on whose lofty temple plates of gold glistened against the shining heavens. This crowd had scourges, and stones, and goads in their hands; and in their midst they led one clothed in white, whose head was thorn-crowned, and whose eyes were filled with a god's pity and a man's reproach; and him they ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... so I do. My argent sphere Goes speeding through the night's opaque; No hazards of the sand I fear, The heavenly huntress keeps me clear Of thorn and brake; Not Dionysus' spotted ounce More featly on the sward may bounce; I hover like a hawk at pounce, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 15, 1914 • Various
... tangled thorn The new-moon hangs a horn, Or, 'mid the sunset's islands, Guides a canoe, The brown owl in the silence Calls, and the dew Beads here its orbs of damp, Each one ...
— Weeds by the Wall - Verses • Madison J. Cawein
... not covered a hundred yards of the path when Holman pounced upon a strip of white bark that waved to us from the thorn of a lawyer-vine crossing the track. A few pencilled words covered the smooth side of the strip, and we absorbed them in ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... tableau at first sight; and Mr Laurie stifled a laugh as he whispered 'The Wounded Knight', pointing to Tom with his head enveloped in a large handkerchief, as he knelt before Nan, who was extracting a thorn or splinter from the palm of his hand with great skill, to judge from the patient's blissful ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... with her wicked smile. "Very good. I shall explain some little matters that I have not explained before. You think I am quite at your mercy now? Bah! I shall make myself a thorn in your sides yet." ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... thorns which lie concealed Along the path which, stretching through the years, Leads on to God, through joy and silent tears, Oh, would that I could pluck from thy dear way Whate'er might tempt these little feet to stray, What though my hands be torn by thorn and stone, Thy joy, for all my pain would soon atone; If but thy mother planned thy life for thee, No other path so bright as thine should be. But what am I, that I my love should count Greater than that of Him, who ...
— Nestlings - A Collection of Poems • Ella Fraser Weller
... Brittany, Beyond the heaths, edged by the lonely sea; 155 Of the deep forest-glades of Broce-liande, deg. deg.156 Through whose green boughs the golden sunshine creeps Where Merlin by the enchanted thorn-tree sleeps. For here he came with the fay deg. Vivian, deg.158 One April, when the warm days first began. He was on foot, and that false fay, his friend, 160 On her white palfrey; here he met his end, In these lone sylvan glades, that April-day. This tale of Merlin and the lovely fay deg. deg.163 ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold
... space they scanned the great expanse below them with eager eyes. It spread remoter and remoter, with only a few clusters of sere thorn bushes here and there, and the dim suggestions of some now waterless ravine, to break its desolation of yellow grass. Its purple distances melted at last into the bluish slopes of the further hills—hills it might be of a greener kind—and above them invisibly supported, and seeming indeed ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... I want to tell you a fable too, to match yours about Melanion. Once there was a certain man called Timon,[447] a tough customer, and a whimsical, a true son of the Furies, with a face that seemed to glare out of a thorn-bush. He withdrew from the world because he couldn't abide bad men, after vomiting a thousand curses at 'em. He had a holy horror of ill-conditioned fellows, but he was mighty tender ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... the end of the e-text. In the primary text (Cursory Observations), the text was left as printed except when an error was unambiguous. In quoted verses, the use of y for (thorn) and z for ...
— Cursory Observations on the Poems Attributed to Thomas Rowley (1782) • Edmond Malone
... out with his men on horseback,—not to avenge the Count, but to ride off as fast as possible in the other direction. So the King's guardsmen had no trouble in getting into the chateau. A party of them, I believe, set off in pursuit of the Captain, who has long been a thorn in the side of people who love order. If he is caught, it can be shown that he was involved in the ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens
... her own sweet will. No harm could come to her in the fields where she strayed. She was home-keeping, and never went far from her own doorstep; nor need she for variety. On one side of the field there was a violet bank, mossy, and hung over with thorn trees. Under the thorns it was possible to hide as within a greenhouse, and children love such make-believe. On the other side of the bank was a steep descent to a tiny stream prattling over shining stones; and fox-gloves grew in ...
— An Isle in the Water • Katharine Tynan
... recollection of the past was as a thorn in his pillow, too often driving sleep from a wearied frame, that needed its health-restoring influence. And often, deep and bitter were his self-reproaches. But for his fatal and half-insane abandonment of himself to the vain hope of gaining a foothold by which ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... inference seems also to be borne out by what happens in the Pomaceae. In some cases in this sub-order, the calyx becomes detached from the carpels, so that the latter organs become more or less "superior," and distinct one from the other. This happens constantly in the double-flowered thorn, Crataegus Oxyacantha, in some blossoms of which the hollowed end of the peduncle still invests the base of the carpels, leaving the upper portions detached. In apples flowers are occasionally met with of greater size than usual and on longer stalks, so that the whole ...
— Vegetable Teratology - An Account of the Principal Deviations from the Usual Construction of Plants • Maxwell T. Masters
... thorn-bush and then turned his attention to the injured man. The white horse had regained his feet and stood whinnying gently as he looked down on his prostrate master. A heavy blow, half broken by his sword, had ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... as he was gone the arrangement for the procession began, the slaves lit their torches and grouped themselves outside the house-door, the flute players struck up a tune, Flexinna's thirteen-year-old boy lit his white-thorn torch at the altar-fire, her eleven-year-old and nine-year-old, as pages of honor, caught Brinnaria by the hands and led her out at the door. So led by the two little boys, their brother with the white-thorn torch walking before her, she passed through ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... thoughts along the turf by the wayside halfway and more to Chichester. He thought always of the two of them as being side by side. His imagination became childishly romantic. The open down about him with its scrub of thorn and yew became the wilderness of the world, and through it they went—in armour, weightless armour—and they wore long swords. There was a breeze blowing and larks were singing and something, something dark and tortuous dashed ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... since no one believed a word that he said, for Keith Endicott ere this had earned the name of the soul of bravery and honor; but Dorris dropped to the ground the roses that had lain all this time in her lap, as if an unseen thorn had wounded her, and, rising, went away to her own cosey room, where she flung herself into an arm-chair and fell into a deep study, looking from her window through the trees to where the blue waters ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 5, Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 5, May, 1886 • Various
... evidently another thorn pricking. Let us have it out, and then I'll kiss the place to make it well as I used to do when I took the splinters from the fingers you are pricking so unmercifully," said the doctor, anxious to relieve his pet patient as ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... doubly surprised at your correspondent's error. That James Payn should have borrowed from me is already a strange conception. The author of LOST SIR MASSINGBERD and BY PROXY may be trusted to invent his own stories. The author of A GRAPE FROM A THORN knows enough, in his own right, of the humorous and ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... next morning Colonel Quinnox and a company of soldiers, riding from the city gates toward the north in response to a call for help from honest herders who reported attacks and robberies of an alarming nature, came upon the stiff, foot-sore, thorn-scratched Mr. Hobbs, not far from the walls of the town. The Colonel was not long in grasping the substance of Hobbs's revelations. He rode off at once for the Witch's hovel, sending Hobbs with a small, instructed escort to the Castle, where ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... the sick and the well: We found also great plenty of celery and pea-tops, which were boiled with the pease and portable soup. Besides these, we gathered great quantities of fruit that resembled the cranberry, and the leaves of a shrub somewhat like our thorn, which were remarkably sour. When we arrived, all our people began to look pale and meagre; many had the scurvy to a great degree, and upon others there were manifest signs of its approach; yet in a fortnight there was not a scorbutic person in either of the ships. Their ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... its purest and most perfect shape. No people was so free as the insurgents; no government less oppressive than the government which they overthrew. Those who deem Washington and Hamilton honest can apply the term to few European statesmen. Their example presents a thorn, not a cushion, and threatens all existing political forms, with the doubtful exception of the federal constitution of 1874. It teaches that men ought to be in arms even against a remote and constructive danger to their freedom; that even if the cloud is no bigger than a man's ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... he took a thorn of the Tree of Sleep and he put it into the flesh of the battle-maiden. Then, with her helmet on her head and the breast-mail of the Valkyrie upon her, he lifted Brynhild in his arms and carried her through the wall of mounting and circling ...
— The Children of Odin - The Book of Northern Myths • Padraic Colum
... supplies from Parliament. But Parliament proved ominously intractable. Thomas Cromwell, now rising to notice, in a temperate speech urged the folly of indulging in impracticable schemes of foreign conquest, while Scotland remained a thorn in England's side.[452] It was three months from the meeting of Parliament before the subsidies were granted, and nearly the end of August before (p. 160) Suffolk crossed to Calais with an army, "the largest which has passed out of this realm for a hundred years".[453] ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... the crook might seem a very small one; but he found it almost too big for him. His dignity and peace of mind, large good-will of ministry and strong Christian sense of magistracy, all were sadly pricked and wounded by a very small thorn in the flesh ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... a tree, and made some sort of a meal off the biltong and cooked corn which they had brought with them. By the time this was finished darkness fell, for there was little moon, so that nothing remained to do except to sleep within a circle of a few dead thorn-boughs which they had drawn about their camp. This, then, they did, and so weary were they both, that notwithstanding all the emotions through which they had passed, and their fears lest lions should attack ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... is raw, the flowers are dead, The frost is on the thorn, So I'll gladly take a crust of bread, And ...
— Pepper & Salt - or, Seasoning for Young Folk • Howard Pyle
... in the world; and I think he has to contend against fewer than most birds. The shrike is his worst enemy, the swift swoop of his cruel beak being always fatal in a flock of chickadees. Fortunately the shrike is rare with us; one seldom finds his nest, with poor Chickadee impaled on a sharp thorn near by, surrounded by a varied lot of ugly beetles. I suspect the owls sometimes hunt him at night; but he sleeps in the thick pine shrubs, close up against a branch, with the pine needles all about him, making it very dark; and what with the darkness, ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... me, a thorn in the flesh. Contagiously you bring to me mistrust Of all my landmarks, when, as here to-night, Out of the midst of every pleasant gift The world can offer you, you raise your voice In scoffing irony against each face, ...
— Mr. Faust • Arthur Davison Ficke
... crowds, dividing and subdividing, but never dying, make excellent mouthfuls for a small feeder. Those with the more flint in their skins were the more apt to survive and "breed." The threads of flint increase until they form a sort of thorn-thicket round a little social group, or a complete lattice round an individual body. Next, spikes or spines jut out from the lattice, partly for additional protection, partly to keep the little body afloat at the surface of the ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe
... the key To all things that were and To all things that be— While the lark's trilling, While the grain's filling, Laugh with the wind At Life's Riddle-me-ree! How you were born of it? Why was the thorn of it? Where the new morn of it? ...
— Fires of Driftwood • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... ACROSS THE CONTINENT," it will be recalled how Phil and his companion won new laurels in the sawdust arena, and how the former ran down and captured a bad man who had been a thorn in the side of the circus itself for many weeks through his efforts to avenge a fancied wrong. By this time the boys had become full-fledged circus performers, each playing an important part in ...
— The Circus Boys On the Mississippi • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... strange secret between them. And after that night Cynthia talked to him often of Coniston, until he came to know the mountain that lay along the western sky, and the sweet hillsides by Coniston Water under the blue haze of autumn, aye, and clothed in the colors of spring, the bright blossoms of thorn and apple against the tender green of the woods and fields. So he grew to love the simple people there, but little did he foresee that he was to end ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... What meat, what drink, What roof his shelter; What the first impression Of his primary thinking; What became his clothing; Who carried on a disguise, Owing to the wiles of the country, In the beginning? Wherefore should a stone be hard; Why should a thorn be sharp-pointed; Who is hard like a flint; Who is salt like brine; Who sweet like honey; Who rides ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 3 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards
... infirmity," and to have walked out in the "fine Isaac Walton mornings, careless as a beggar, and walking, walking, and dying walking;" but he says, "the hope is gone. I sit like Philomel all day (but not singing), with my breast against this thorn of ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall
... with all thy heart, and all thy soul, to give thee strength, and be strong in thy weakness; and what Christ doth not see good to relieve thee from, suffer in hope. It may be better for thee to be kept humble and in self-abasement. The thorn in the flesh may remain and yet the grace of God through Christ prove sufficient for thee. Only cling to Christ, and do thy best. In all love and well-doing gird thyself up to improve and use aright what remains free in thee, and ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... straw hat, Tommy Brown running after it, very cross, very red in the face, and breathing very hard. Way across the Green Meadows they ran to the edge of the wood, where they hung the old straw hat in the middle of a thorn tree. By the time Tommy Brown had it once more on his head he had forgotten all about Mrs. Redwing and her dear little nest. Besides, he heard the breakfast horn blowing just then, so off he started for home up the Lone Little ...
— Old Mother West Wind • Thornton W. Burgess
... of great splendour; for "the commencement of the reign of Henry VIII., who was then styled by his loving subjects 'the rose without a thorn,' witnessed a remarkable revival of magnificence in personal decoration. So brilliant were the dresses of both sexes at the grand entertainment over which the King and Queen presided at Richmond, that it is difficult to convey ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... the pontifices, as a real burden devolving -de jure- on every heir or other person acquiring the estate—began to form an extremely oppressive charge on property; "inheritance without sacrificial obligation" was a proverbial saying among the Romans somewhat similar to our "rose without a thorn." The dedication of a tenth of their substance became so common, that twice every month a public entertainment was given from the proceeds in the Forum Boarium at Rome. With the Oriental worship of the Mother of ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... to Uterysdale, and long continued to use his power to protect the bold outlaws, and Robin Hood dwelt securely in the greenwood, doing good to the poor and worthy, but acting as a thorn in the sides of all ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... was wise and intelligent, dreamt great dreams. She dreamt, for one, that she was standing out in her herb-garden, and she took a thorn out of her shift; but while she was holding the thorn in her hand it grew so that it became a great tree, one end of which struck itself down into the earth, and it became firmly rooted; and the other end of the tree raised itself so high ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... might be more durable. In the English books, we have descriptions of drains filled with thorn cuttings from hedges and with gorse. When well laid in clay, they are said to last about 15 years. When the thorns decay, the clay will still retain its form, and leave a passage ...
— Farm drainage • Henry Flagg French
... Pharisee in the temple," said Andrew, "but 'by their fruits ye shall know them,' and we're not gathering any figs off of Mr. Craigie, nor grapes from that thorn of an Auld Laird that I ...
— The Scotch Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... mile away, came the shadows of the clouds—then down along the corn towards us. Stonechats started from the flints and low bushes as we went by; an old crow—it is always an old crow—rose hastily from behind a fence of withered thorn; and a magpie fluttered down the hill to the fields beneath, where was a flock of sheep. The breeze at this ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies
... pierced Dinah's heart like a thorn; she repented of having tempted Etienne into the extravagances of love. It is so difficult to pass from pleasure to work, that happiness has wrecked more poems than sorrows ever helped to flow in sparkling jets. Dinah, happy in seeing Etienne ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... anecdote with respect to the fieldfare (turdus pilaris) which I think is particular enough; this bird, though it sits on trees in the daytime, and procures the greatest part of its food from white-thorn hedges, yea, moreover, builds on very high trees, as may be seen by the fauna suecica; yet always appears with us to roost on the ground. They are seen to come in flocks just before it is dark, and to settle and nestle among the ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White
... Stramonium). Stramonium, also known as Thorn-apple, in large doses is a powerful narcotic poison. In medicinal doses it acts as ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... JOHN MORLEY thinks he's leary, And he's off to Tipperary; My policy he thinks he'll be a thorn in; But before he comes away He will find to spoil my play He must get up very early in the mornin'. Wid his bundle on his shoulder, He thinks no man could look boulder, And he's lavin' for Auld Ireland widout warnin'. For he lately ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Nov. 1, 1890 • Various
... the western waves is as intelligible as it is that the horned Venus or Astarte should rise from the sea in the far east. It is perhaps less obvious that winter should be so frequently symbolized as a thorn or sharp instrument. Achilleus dies by an arrow-wound in the heel; the thigh of Adonis is pierced by the boar's tusk, while Odysseus escapes with an ugly scar, which afterwards secures his recognition by his old servant, the ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... steel was imbedded and encapsulated in the ciliary process twenty-nine years without producing sympathetic irritation of its fellow, but causing such pain as to warrant enucleation of this eye. Gunning speaks of a piece of thorn 5/8 inch long, imbedded in the left eyeball of an old man for six years, causing total loss of vision; he adds that, after its removal, some improvement ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... tinted the waters of the Gulf to the line of palm-fringed beach which edged the distant shoreline. From the shore the land sloped gently to the west and north, mile after mile of primeval jungle broken here and there where brush and thorn and creeper had yielded to man's demand for more and more hemp. Far inland the steady rise persisted, grew more abrupt and more heavily timbered, terminating in the far interior in a dim and mighty mountain whose dark-wooded slopes ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... before we could have the pony-chaise and go together to Harold's grave. The great, massive, Irish granite cross was not ready then, and there was only the long, very long, green mound, at my mother's feet. There lay two wreaths on it. One was a poor thorn garland—for his own Hydriot children had, we heard, never left it untended all the winter—the other was of a great white-flowered rhododendron that was peculiar ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... infliction; blow, stroke, burden, load, curse; bitter pill, bitter draught; waters of bitterness. annoyance, grievance, nuisance, vexation, mortification, sickener[obs3]; bore, bother, pother, hot water, "sea of troubles" [Hamlet], hornet's nest, plague, pest. cancer, ulcer, sting, thorn; canker &c. (bane) 663; scorpion &c. (evil doer) 913; dagger &c. (arms) 727; scourge &c. (instrument of punishment) 975; carking care, canker worm of care. mishap, misfortune &c. (adversity) 735; desagrement[Fr], esclandre[Fr], rub. source of irritation, source of annoyance; wound, open ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... had ever before made, and they sojourned together a long while. At length it fell out that, as they were going one day hand in hand through the forest of Breceliande, they found a bush of white-thorn, which was laden with flowers; and they seated themselves under the shade of this white-thorn, upon the green grass, and Merlin laid his head upon the damsel's lap, and fell asleep. Then the damsel rose, and made a ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... on my table, and opening out the tracing-paper upon it; and there was the veritable picture of the Good Shepherd! His countenance was loving and kind. With one hand He was pushing aside the branch of a tree, though a great thorn went right through it; and with the other He was extricating a sheep which was entangled in the thorns. The poor thing was looking up in helplessness, all spotted over with marks of its own blood, for it was wounded in struggling to escape. Another thing which struck me in ...
— From Death into Life - or, twenty years of my ministry • William Haslam
... stiff like a poker, but evidently a dangerous man, who never opens his mouth except when he eats. He is a famous hand at small-swords, however, and snuffs his candle, nine times out of ten, at a distance of thirty yards. This Mr. Thomas Elgin, whom the world calls familiarly Sir Thorn, and Mrs. Brian, always stay ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... is not so satisfactory: she hates learning, sewing, washing up the dishes, all equally. I am sorry to say she shows no natural piety. Her companions detest her, and the nuns, although they admit that she is not exactly naughty, seem to feel her as a dreadful thorn in the flesh. She spends hours and hours on the terrace overlooking the sea (her great desire, she confided to me, is to get to the sea—to get back to the sea, as she expressed it), and lying in the garden, under the big ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... conscience or sensibility to shame, the curses of a whole people, whom he had turned from admiring friends to bitter foes, and the jeers and scorn of those whom he wished to make friends, must have planted many a thorn in his bosom, to ...
— The Old Bell Of Independence; Or, Philadelphia In 1776 • Henry C. Watson
... the living reality of lawns and woods, and flocks in "the green pasture and beside the still waters," which silently remind them of the Shepherd, under whom they shall not want any real good thing. The quiet of the shady lane is theirs, and the beauty of the blossoming thorn above the pool. Delight steals through them with the scent of the violet, or the new mown hay. If they have hushed the voices of complaint and fear within them, there is the music of the merry lark for them, or of the leaping waterfall, or of a whole orchestra ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... villages and through three of those strips of park timber which Continentals call forests, we presently drew up and halted and dismounted where a thick fringe of undergrowth, following the line of an old and straggly thorn hedge, met the road at right angles on the comb of a small ridge commanding a view of the ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb |
